Junjie begged to disagree. Sure, Lady Chi did not partake in gossip but nosing around was her job as a spy. That is why he believed that she was aware of the secret and just chose to keep it in order to help him preserve his dignity.
"Everyone thinks that when you are an emperor, you live a lavish life and sleep on a golden bed. Nobody realizes how relatable you are." She said to him.
Junjie waved his hand upwards, "All hail the Emperor."
"All hail." i i raised her glass of wine as if she was making a toast.
i i left the table for a mont, rushed out and returned with two very large wine glasses. The kind that were ant for decoration, not drinking. Waning followed her with beer whose alcohol content was low and ready hangover cures for after they finished drinking themselves stupid.
She mixed the beers until the large glasses where half full and pushed one towards Junjie.
"I shouldn’t." he said. "Tomorrow I must give a speech and...."
"F that." She replied. "You are going to celebrate your escape from the wife from hell today. You will spend the night here in my house and wake up at noon tomorrow." She insisted that he drink. "You are the emperor, you make the rules. "Your problem is that you are always thinking of what the press will say. What the world will think. How others will be affected? You are always thinking of that instead of yourself. I think you should learn how to be selfish Junjie, not all the ti but every once in a while."
He put down the skewer and took the glass with both hands, taking one large sip. As he placed it down carefully, he said, "These glasses are not ant to be drunk out of."
"Then why manufacture them?" She asked him.
Junjie shrugged. "I am not sure. For decorative purposes I guess. Using them to drink is not a good idea because one will drink beyond their limit."
"Who needs a limit when they are guaranteed to wake up without a headache?" She asked him. "Don’t ruin this. I want us to drink as if we are eighteen again."
Junjie groaned. "Oh boy! I did a lot of stupid things at eighteen." He looked at her and laughed. "So did you."
The door opened. Waning and another bodyguard walked into the dining room with sizzling steak that slled so good. They took away all the at that was already cold. A maid followed them and she placed down spicy chilli garlic noodles. Another brought stead and roasted vegetables.
i i’s nostrils sniffed the air and she reached for the steak. "Mmm, slls nice. Now this is the proper way to talk about sad things." She carried the big wine glass and moved towards him. "Co on, we should toast."
Junjie picked up his and they toasted. "Cheers."
She settled back down and started enjoying the al. "So tell , how did you manage to raise Long Shuang despite knowing that she is not your own?"
Junjie shrugged a little, "I tried and I am trying to be as good a father as I can be to her. But you have t her and seen what she is like. She is very different from and Wen. Not only does she look like her mother but she behaves like her as well. Sotis I wonder if I should just announce the truth and send her to her real father. But she is just a child. If people know where she cos from, the rest of her life will be ruined."
i i sighed, "She is in a worse situation than Mo Hao. He is just the product of an extra material affair. She is the product of incest. How will she ever face the world if people know the truth?"
"Which is exactly why I felt sorry for her." He said. "I was the first person to carry her when she was born. Maybe its because of that mory that I hold so feelings of affection for her."
"If she continues to behave like her mother you will have to let go of her eventually." i i told him.
Junjie sighed. "I know." He twirled noodles around the chopsticks, thinking about all the strategies he had to deal with Long Shuang. Most of them included shipping her off to a small empire sowhere or having a relative that was living in isolation away from the royal family raise her.
"So what is the plan for her funeral. There is no body." i i asked, changing the subject. She did not want to hear anymore of the Empress’s scandalous affair. As for Long Shuang’s fate it was of no concern to her.
anwhile, in the royal palace, the Empress Mother was already wiping out the last traces which led back to her. Everyone that had participated in the operation was paying a visit to her chambers.
When they left, they had no mory of what they had done. This was done by Chi Lian. The old mories were replaced with newer mories.
As far as they were concerned, they had learned about the death of the empress in the sa way as everyone else: at the scene or on the news.
Chi Lian had just finished wiping the mory of the last person on the list. She stepped out of the Empress Mother’s chambers, twisting her neck from side to side. "All that is left is Jingzhe and Mingzhe. Should I wipe their mories as well?"
The Empress Mother was standing by a window, just as she had been doing in the morning when the Empress set out. She had a pair of binoculars this ti and she was watching the crowd of mourners that had gathered outside the royal palace.
Chi Lian joined her at the window and pulled out her own binoculars. "What are we looking at?"
"The people." The Empress Mother turned her head to Chi Lian and glanced at her for a mont. "They hated her in life and called her many things. Her reputation for sucking the blood of the common people dry was wide spread. Today, they stand outside, thousands of them, singing mournful songs and dumping flowers and candles at the my gates in her honor."
"I would not call it dumping." Chi Lian said.
"I can’t believe that Hui Zhenting has the guts to show up here. Does he think that nobody knows he cuckolded the emperor?" The Empress Mother asked.
Chi Lian gasped. "Wh...What?"
The Empress Mother rolled her eyes. "Even that bat you keep is a better actress than you!"
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